Court Adjourned Until February 19, 2009

10:00am: Court resumed briefly on February 9, 2009. After taking representations from both prosecution and defense, presiding judge Richard Lussick asked whether there were anythings that the parties wanted to say. Prosecution counsel Brenda Hollis responded that the prosecution had two issues if interest to mention:

1. Whether there will be a Rule 98 submission of no case to answer by the defense, and if there is, then the defense will be interested to know the procedure and timing for such proceedure. (This is a submission by the defense that “there is no evidence capable of supporting a conviction on one or more counts in the indictment.”)

2. The prosecution wanted to know when the defense case would commence.

Justice Lussick replied that he thought these issues were a bit premature as there were ten or more interlocutory matters to be decided by the Chamber, which might or might not require the prosecution to submite more evidence.

Prosecution counsel Ms. Hollis insisted that it was necessary to determine those issue as the prosecution did not anticipate calling any more witnesses otherthan documentary evidence.

In his response, Defense counsel for Mr. Taylor, Courtenay Griffiths said that it is premature to make any statement on Rule 98 submission as prosecution case has not yet been closed. He said that a decision on this will only be made after the closure of the prosecution case.

After confering with his colleagues, Justice Lussick told the parties that since the prosecution case has not yet been closed, these matters would better be raised at a status conference. He said that the Chamber had many matters to dispose of before determing these issues. Justice Lussick ruled that the court would adjourn to allow the Chamber to deal with these matters, Court was adjourned to Thursday February 19, 2009, on which date the Chamber will determine a time and proceedure for a status conference.

Court adjourned and will resume on Thursday February 19, 2009.

This trial is no longer active

The Charles Taylor trial at the Special Criminal Court for Sierra Leone has concluded and this site is no longer being updated. Archives of the proceedings will remain online.